What to Cook This Weekend

Sam Sifton emails readers of Cooking five days a week to talk about food and suggest recipes. That email also appears here. To receive it in your inbox, register here.

Good morning. Got a nice letter this week from a woman who doesn’t really cook, just makes a salad and some rice every night and eats it thinking about the more complicated cooking many of the rest of us are doing and how the ritual and art of that makes her feel better about where we are as a nation right now, divided and angry on both sides of the political aisle. She reads these newsletters and the notes attached to the recipes on Cooking and told me she thought how maybe the moments we’re building in the kitchen could help us move forward together, toward goodwill and amity, as we feed one another and enjoy the time spent in the presence of food.

I sure hope so. You don’t need to feed 100 people to find out. Feed just one and you’ll see, even if it’s just salad and rice.

Not that it’s easy. Some in the congregation are two days into Lent, and perhaps already regretting their decisions to give up chocolate or booze. So for them, here’s a fine Friday night recipe for Nova Scotia-style fish cakes, from Joan Nathan.

Thousands and thousands of other ideas for what to cook this weekend are available on Cooking. Head on over there and see what you find. Save the recipes you like to your recipe box, then rate them when you’re done cooking, and leave notes on them, for yourself or for the public. Share them via email, or on social media. Take full advantage of the cloud!

And if you run into trouble with anything, from the technology to the recipes themselves, please write to us for help: cookingcare@nytimes.com. We’ll get back to you pronto and help set you straight.